


The Order of the Phoenix

by Ha_Ma



Series: Black Fate [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, F/M, Fix-It, Like really slow, M/M, My First AO3 Post, My First Fanfic, My First Work in This Fandom, Rewrite, Slow Burn, Slowest burn to ever burn, Sort Of, couldn't live with all my faves dying, kind of, so this happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-09-29 08:10:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17199785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ha_Ma/pseuds/Ha_Ma
Summary: It's Harry Potter's fifth year at Hogwarts. A new student unexpectedly joins them in the school of Witchcraft and Wizardry and a mysterious raven makes its repeated appearance. But dark times have come and Harry and his friends have other things to worry about than birds. Lord Voldemort is back and he will stop at nothing to find Harry. While many deny the Dark Lord's return, Harry is not alone: a secret order gathers to fight the dark forces.





	1. A Bird and two Dementors

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there :)  
> This is my first ever published fanfic and I'm very excited about it (and scared)...  
> I think the tags already tell you the most important information about this story, so just a few more things:  
> I'll weave my own character/s into the original Harry Potter plot (which belongs to J.K. Rowling, just as all the other characters) and gradually change it into my own story to save some character's lives (here's the cue for the heroic music). This will be a very slow process, meaning it's going to be a lot of text from the real books at the beginning, so the transition between original and fanfic is fluent and believable as a whole. Don't get me wrong: I love Harry Potter as it is. I just refuse to accept some people dying (cruel, cruel J.K. Rowling).  
> Also, I'm not native in English. There are going to be mistakes and a lot of unnecessary commas (German here, halli hallo). I apologise for those in advance and it would be nice if you could point them out to me so I can correct them.  
> Thanks and have fun reading!  
> Hannah <3

“Hello, Professor.”  
“Good evening ... I did not expect a visitor today – who are you?”  
“You mask your surprise well, Professor. There is no need to fear me, though. I’m here to help.”  
“Are you?”  
“Indeed.”  
“Why should I believe you?”  
“Well... That is a good question, Professor. To answer it honestly: you probably shouldn’t. However, I still ask you to trust me. I need your help as much as you need mine.”  
“...”  
“You never answered my first question. Who are you?”

HARRY

The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and drowsy silence lay over the large square houses of Privet Drive. Cars that were usually gleaming stood dusty in their drives and lawns that were once emerald green lay parched and yellowing – for the use of hosepipes had been banned due to drought. Deprived of their beloved car-washing and lawn-mowing pursuits, the inhabitants of Privet Drive had retreated into the shade of their cool houses, windows thrown wide in the hope of tempting a non-existent breeze. The only person left outdoors was a teenage boy, stalking through the streets with a sure-footedness one could only acquire when going the same way over and over again.  
He was a skinny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who had the pinched, slightly unhealthy look of someone who has grown a lot in a short space of time. His jeans were torn and dirty, his T-shirt baggy and faded, and the soles of his trainers were peeling away from the uppers. Harry Potter’s appearance did not endear him to the neighbours, who were the sort of people who thought scruffiness ought to be punishable by law, but as he turned a corner into Magnolia Crescent he found himself not caring much about what they thought or didn’t.  
Harry crossed Magnolia Crescent, turned into Magnolia Road and headed towards the darkening play park. He vaulted over the locked gate and set off across the parched grass. The park was as empty as the surrounding streets. When he reached the swings he sank on to the only one that Dudley and his friends had not yet managed to break, coiled one arm around the chain and stared moodily at the ground. He had nothing to look forward to but another restless, disturbed night, because even when he escaped the nightmares about Cedric he had unsettling dreams about long dark corridors, all finishing in dead ends and locked doors, which he supposed had something to do with the trapped feeling he had when he was awake. Harry was stuck in Privet Drive, reduced to hiding in flowerbeds in hope of hearing something on the news that might point to what Lord Voldemort was doing. If he was lucky, there would also be owls carrying letters from his best friends Ron and Hermione, though any expectation he’d had that their letters would bring him news had long since been dashed.  
We can’t say much about you-know-what, obviously ... We’ve been told not to say anything important in case our letters go astray ... We’re quite busy but I can’t give you details here ... There’s a fair amount going on, we’ll tell you everything when we see you ...  
But when were they going to see him? Nobody seemed too bothered with a precise date. Hermione had scribbled I expect we’ll be seeing you soon inside his birthday card, but how soon was soon? As far as Harry could tell from the vague hints in their letters, Hermione and Ron were in the same place, presumably in Ron’s parents’ house. He could hardly bear to think of the pair of them having fun at The Burrow while he was quite literally gathering dust in Little Whinging.  
Harry kicked at the hard dry earth and swung backwards with a great, shrill creak.  
Sirius, at least, seemed to understand how Harry was feeling. Admittedly, his letters were just as empty of proper information as Ron and Hermione’s, but at least they contained words of consolation instead of tantalising hints:  
I know this must be frustrating for you ... Keep your nose clean and everything will be OK ... Be careful and don’t do anything rash ...  
Well, thought Harry as he rammed the heels of his feet into the ground and stopped the swing’s movement with another whining creak, he had (by and large) done as Sirius advised. He had, at least, resisted the temptation to tie his trunk to his broomstick and set off for The Burrow by himself or the urge to write the stupid Daily Profit and point out that Voldemort had returned. In fact, Harry thought his behaviour had been very good considering how frustrated and angry he felt. Nevertheless, it was quite galling to be told not to be rash by a man who had served twelve years in the wizard prison, Azkaban, escaped, attempted to commit the murder he had been convicted for in the first place, then gone on the run with a stolen Hippogriff.  
As if that weren’t enough, the old scar on his forehead often prickled uncomfortably, but Harry didn’t fool himself that Ron or Hermione or Sirius would find that very interesting anymore. In the past, his scar hurting had warned that Voldemort was getting stronger again, but now that the evil wizard was back they would probably remind him that its regular irritation was only to be expected ... nothing to worry about ... old news ...  
The injustice of it all welled up inside him so that he wanted to yell with fury. If it hadn’t been for him, nobody would even have known Voldemort was back! And his reward was to be stuck in Privet Drive for four solid weeks, completely cut off from the magical world, forced to –  
A rustling sound brought Harry’s furious brooding to an abrupt halt. His head snapped up to stare into the sultry, velvety night that had fallen around him. The air was filled with the smell of warm, dry grass and the only sound that could be heard now was the low rumble of traffic on the road beyond the park railings. Dimly, Harry was aware of how silent it had suddenly gotten. No crickets chirped, no birds sang. But he couldn’t see a thing, staring straight into the darkness. With a surge of wild hope he was reminded of the night two years ago when he had first clapped eyes on the large black dog that was his godfather, who, at that time, had given Harry quite the fright, since he had not known then that the dog posed in no way a danger for him. For a very short moment Harry thought, that maybe, this time it was Sirius again, who lurked in the shadows, but as the seconds ticked by and no further sound came nor a shaggy dog or tall man appeared, the hopeful flutter in his stomach gave way to cold panic. There were many dark things that would have wanted to surprise him in the night and most of them would have tried to kill him.  
Harry, who had the gnawing feeling this wasn’t just a stray animal padding through the bushes, grabbled for his wand. Pointing it at the black wall of air in front of him he hesitated. Lightening his wand meant, besides him being able to see, unfortunately, that whoever or whatever was there, could see him, too. Now, surrounded by complete darkness, he had at least the tiny chance of having remained unnoticed, even though he found that highly unlikely. Harry swallowed drily. Maybe it was just a stray after all. But then there was more rustling and the sound of something sharp dragging across dried up earth and he mumbled: “Lumos”, before he could think about it again.  
The tip of Harry’s wand lit up, bathing the play park in warm, white light.  
Harry could only just stop himself from falling from the swing.  
There, no five feet in front of him, crouched the most enormous bird he had ever seen. It was easily as tall as him while he was sitting and would surely reach his shoulders if he were to stand up. Harry remained sitting on the swing, his wand in a white-knuckled death grip. The feathers of the bird were pitch black and silky smooth. They shone like the finest cloth, something his Aunt Petunia would be jealous of if someone would wear it. The eyes of the bird – a raven, Harry realised – were just as black as the rest of it and even though one could not really know what this type of eyes was looking at, Harry had the distinct feeling it was staring right at him. In the back of his mind, he heard Professor Trelawney whispering about death omen.  
He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there, contemplating if he should rather hex the bird or run for his life when the sound of voices interrupted the panic-filled silence. Against his better judgement Harry risked a quick look towards the sound. The street lamps from the road on that side were casting a misty glow strong enough to silhouette a group of people making their way into the park. One of them was singing a loud, crude song. The others were laughing. A soft ticking noise came from several expensive racing bikes they were wheeling along.  
Harry knew who those people were. The figure in the front was unmistakably his cousin, Dudley Dursley, wending his way home, accompanied by his faithful gang. They were under no circumstances allowed to see him with his wand out, a fact Harry didn’t care about much, not now anyway.  
Only a fraction of a second had gone by, when Harry whipped his head back around the bird, however, had vanished without a trace. For a moment he sat frozen in place on the swing, with his heart hammering rapidly against his rips before he remembered to extinguish his wand’s light. His pulse made a frightening leap as the black of the night gulped him whole. What if that thing was still there?  
A loud bellow of laughter echoed around the park and Harry turned around again. Breathing heavily he watched the group of teenagers trotting through the grass. His cousin Dudley was as vast as ever, but a year’s hard dieting and the discovery of a new talent had wrought quite a change in his physique. As uncle Vernon delightedly told anyone who would listen, Dudley had recently become the Junior Heavyweight Inter-School Boxing Champion of the Southeast. ‘The noble sport’, as Uncle Vernon called it, had made Dudley even more formidable than he had seemed to Harry in their primary school days when he had served as Dudley’s first punch ball.  
Harry wondered who they had been beating up today, probably one of the neighbourhood children. They were terrified of Dudley – even more terrified of ‘that Potter boy’ who, they had been warned, was a hardened hooligan and attended St Brutus’s Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys.  
If Dudley’s friends saw him sitting here, they would be sure to make a beeline for him. Harry was not remotely afraid of his cousin’s gang anymore, he would under normal circumstances even consider seeking a fight just to vent some of his frustration – he was well aware that he wasn’t allowed to use magic – but the giant raven had left him shaking. His knees felt like pudding.  
So Harry sat, waiting for them to pass. As they did so without looking in his direction once, Harry breathed out a sigh of relief. He waited until the voices of Dudley and his friends had died away and they were out of sight, heading along Magnolia Road, until he got to his feet. He walked swiftly after Dudley, albeit rather unsure and with wobbly legs. The thought of staying any minute longer on the swing in the play park made his stomach churn unpleasantly. Before Harry had preferred Little Whinging by night, when the curtains were drawn so the windows made patches of jewel-bright colour in the darkness and he ran no danger of hearing disapproving mutters about his ‘delinquent’ appearance when he passed the householders. Now though, Harry wished for the daylight.  
The tingling sensation in his neck that came with being watched spurred his already hurried pace further into a light jog until halfway along Magnolia Road Dudley’s gang came into view again. As they said their farewells at the entrance to Magnolia Crescent, Harry halted and stepped carefully into the shadow of a large lilac tree. He threw a cautious glance over his shoulder. There was nothing to see; nothing, but night pressing in on the circles of light thrown onto the pavement by the street lamps.  
“... squealed like a pig, didn’t he?” Malcolm was saying on the other side of the tree to guffaws from the others. Harry’s eyes remained fixed onto the black mass that was the park.  
“Nice right hook, Big D,” said Piers.  
“Same time tomorrow?” asked Dudley.  
“Round at my place, my parents will be out,” said Gordon.  
“See you then,” said Dudley.  
“Bye Dud!”  
“See ya Big D!”  
Only when the rest of the gang had moved on and the voices had faded once more did Harry turn and set off again. He headed around the corner into Magnolia Crescent and had soon caught up with Dudley, who was strolling along at his ease, humming tunelessly.  
“Hey, Big D!” To Harry’s dismay, his voice quivered slightly.  
Dudley turned.  
“Oh,” he grunted. “It’s you.”  
“How long have you been ‘Big D’ then?” said Harry half-heartedly, desperately trying to distract himself from his own nervousness.  
“Shut it,” snarled Dudley, turning away.  
“Cool name,” said Harry, grinning a pained grimace and falling into step beside his cousin. “But you’ll always be ‘Ickle Diddykins’ to me.”  
“I said SHUT IT!” said Dudley, whose ham-like hands had curled into fists.  
“Don’t the boys know that’s what your mum calls you?”  
“Shut your face.”  
“You don’t tell her to shut her face. What about ‘Popkin’ and ‘Dinky Diddydums’, can I use them then?”  
Dudley said nothing. The effort of keeping himself from hitting Harry seemed to demand all of his self-control.  
“So who’ve you been beating up tonight?” Harry asked, the waver in his voice and his forced grin fading. “Another ten-year-old? I know you did Mark Evans two nights ago –“  
“He was asking for it,” snarled Dudley.  
“Oh yeah?”  
“He cheeked me.”  
“Yeah? Did he say you look like a pig that’s been taught to walk on its hind legs? ‘Cause that’s not cheek, Dud, that’s true.”  
A muscle was twitching in Dudley’s jaw. It gave Harry a thrill of satisfaction to know how furious he was making Dudley. And that feeling was almost, almost enough to make him forget his neck still tingled dangerously. He was nearly breathless from it.  
They turned right down the narrow alleyway where Harry had first seen Sirius and which formed a shortcut between Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk. It was empty and much darker than the streets it linked because there were no street lamps. Their footsteps were muffled between garage walls on one side and a high fence on the other. Harry’s heartbeat made a frightening lurch. What if the bird came back? There were certainly enough shadows to hide in, even for a bird as enormous as the black one from the park.  
“Think you’re a big man carrying that thing, don’t you?” Dudley said after a few seconds.  
“What thing?” Harry said in a dazed sort of way, his eyes searching in the dark.  
“That – that thing you are hiding.”  
Harry grimaced again trying to grin.  
“Not as stupid as you look, are you, Dud? But I s’pose, if you were, you wouldn’t be able to talk and walk at the same time.” His words, lacking the casual carelessness he would’ve loved to put in them, were barely above a whisper.  
There was a rustle somewhere on the left. Harry stopped walking abruptly and pulled out his wand with clammy fingers. He saw Dudley halt, too, looking sideways at it. His cousin probably hadn’t heard the sound and if he head he thought nothing of it. Why should he? He wasn’t the one who had faced a five feet tall raven in the middle of a play park after nightfall; or any magical creatures for that matter.  
“You’re not allowed,” Dudley said at once, mistaking Harry’s action as a threat. “I know you’re not. You’d get expelled from that freak school you go to.”  
“Would you be quiet,” hissed Harry. He strained his ears to hear something, anything but silence had overcome the alleyway. Only their huffed, shallow breathing resounded hollowly from the garage walls.  
“You haven’t got the guts to take me on without that thing, have you?” Dudley ignored his warning and snarled.  
“Dudley, shut up!”  
“Not this brave at night, are you?” he sneered.  
“This is night,” spat Harry, trying to ignore the fact that he didn’t feel brave at all right now, “and it would be – “  
“I mean when you’re in bed!” snarled Dudley.  
Harry stared at his cousin. From the little he could see of Dudley’s large face, he was wearing a strangely triumphant look. Unease and a sense of foreboding filled his stomach; he had revisited the graveyard last night in his dreams.  
“I heard you,” said Dudley grinning evilly. “Talking in your sleep. Moaning.”  
He took in Harry’s silence greedily and gave a harsh bark of laughter, then adopted a high-pitched whimpering noise.  
“’Don’t kill Cedric! Don’t kill Cedric!’ Who’s Cedric – boyfriend?”  
“I – you’re lying,” said Harry automatically. But his mouth had gone dry, giant birds momentarily forgotten. He knew Dudley wasn’t lying. How else would he know about Cedric?  
“’Dad! Help me, Dad! He’s going to kill me, Dad!’”  
“Shut up,” said Harry slowly. “Shut up, Dudley, I’m warning you!”  
“’Come and help me, Dad! Mum, come and help me! He’s killed Cedric! Dad help me! He’s going to –‘ Don’t you point that thing at me!”  
Dudley backed into the alley wall. Harry was pointing the wand directly at his cousin’s heart. He could feel fourteen years’ hatred of Dudley pounding in his veins – what wouldn’t he give to strike now, to jinx Dudley so thoroughly he’d have to crawl home like an insect, struck dumb, sprouting feelers ...  
“Don’t ever talk about that again,” Harry snarled. “Do you understand me?”  
“Point that thing somewhere else!”  
“I said, do you understand me?”  
“Point it somewhere else!”  
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”  
“GET THAT THING AWAY FROM –”  
Dudley gave an odd, shuddering gasp, as though he had been doused in icy water.  
Something had happened to the night. The entire alleyway had been plunged into pitch black darkness, the sky was lightless – the stars, the clouded moon, the misty street lamps at either end of the narrow passage had vanished. The distant rumble of cars and the whisper of trees had gone. Just like when the bird had appeared before him everything was quiet. No crickets or other insects, no sound was to be heard. But this was not the raven, Harry was sure. The balmy evening was suddenly piercingly, bitingly cold. They were surrounded by total, impenetrable, silent night, as though someone had dropped a thick icy mantle over them, blinding them.  
Harry turned his head this way and that, trying to see something but the darkness pressed on his eyes like a weightless veil.  
Dudley’s terrified voice broke in Harry’s ear.  
“W-what are you d-doing? St-stop it!”  
“I’m not doing anything! Shut up and don’t move!” The quivering was back in full force.  
“I c-can’t see! I’ve gone blind! I –”  
“I said shut up!”  
Harry stood stock-still, turning his sightless eyes left and right. The cold was so intense he was shivering all over; goose bumps had erupted up his arms and the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up – he opened his eyes to their fullest extent, staring blankly around, unseeing. Again he had the feeling of being watched.  
It was impossible ... they couldn’t be here ... not in Little Whinging ... first the raven and now them ...  
He strained his ears. Whatever was about to pounce on them, he would hear it before he saw it.  
“I-I’ll tell Dad!” Dudley whimpered. “W-Where are you? What are you d-do-?”  
“Will you shut up?” Harry hissed, “I’m trying to –”  
But he fell silent. He heard just the thing he had been dreading. Not the bird, no, one of them. Who knows, with his luck it was both.  
There was something in the alleyway apart from themselves, something that was drawing long, hoarse, rattling breaths. Harry felt a horrible jolt of fear as he stood trembling in the freezing air.  
“C-cut it out! Stop doing it! I’ll h-hit you, I swear I will!”  
“Dudley, shut –”  
WHAM.  
A fist made contact with the side of Harry’s head, lifting him off his feet. Small white lights popped in front of his eyes. His head felt as though it had been cleaved in two; next moment he had landed hard on the ground as his wand had flown out of his hand.  
“You moron, Dudley!” Harry yelled, his eyes watering with pain as he scrambled to his hands and knees, feeling around frantically in the blackness. He heard Dudley blundering away, hitting the alley fence, stumbling.  
“DUDLEY, COME BACK! YOU’RE RUNNING RIGHT AT IT!”  
There was a horrible squealing yell and Dudley’s footsteps stopped. At the same moment, Harry felt a creeping chill behind him that could mean only one thing. There was more than one.  
“DUDLEY, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! WHATEVER YOU DO, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!”  
“Wand,” Harry muttered frantically, his hands flying over the ground like spiders. “Where’s – wand – come on – Lumos!”  
He had said the spell automatically; desperate for light to help him in his search – and to his disbelieving relief, light flared inches from his right hand – the wand-tip had ignited. Harry snatched it up, scrambled to his feet and turned around.  
His stomach made a somersault.  
A towering, hooded figure was gliding smoothly towards him, hovering over the ground, no feet or face visible beneath its robes, sucking on the night as it came.  
Stumbling backwards, Harry raised his wand.  
“Expecto Patronum!”  
A silvery wisp of vapour shot from the tip of the wand and the Dementor slowed, but the spell hadn’t worked properly. Tripping over his own feet, Harry retreated further as the Dementor bore down upon him, panic fogging his brain – concentrate –  
A pair of grey, slimy, scabbed hands slid from inside the Dementor’s robes, reaching for him. A rushing noise filled Harry’s ears.  
“Expecto Patronum!”  
His voice sounded dim and distant. Another wisp of silver smoke, feebler than the last, drifted from the wand – he couldn’t do it anymore, he couldn’t work the spell.  
There was laughter inside his own head, shrill, high-pitched laughter ... he could smell the Dementor’s putrid, death-cold breath filling his own lungs, drowning him – think ... something happy ...  
But there was no happiness in him ... the Dementor’s icy fingers were closing in on his throat – the high-pitched laughter was growing louder and louder, and a voice spoke inside his head: “Bow to death, Harry ... it might even be painless ... I would never know ... I have never died ...”  
He was never going to see Ron and Hermione again –  
And their faces burst clearly into his mind as he fought for oxygen.  
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”  
A silver stag erupted from the tip of Harry’s wand; its antlers caught the Dementor in the place where the heart should have been; it was thrown backwards, weightless, and as the stag charged the Dementor swooped away, bat-like and defeated.  
“THIS WAY!” Harry shouted at the stag. Wheeling around, he sprinted down the alleyway, holding the lit wand aloft. “DUDLEY? DUDLEY!”  
He had run barely a dozen steps when he reached them: Dudley was curled up on the ground, his arms clamped over his face. A second Dementor was crouching low over him, gripping his wrists in its slimy hands, prising them slowly, almost lovingly apart. It lowered its hooded head towards Dudley’s face as though about to kiss him.  
And then Harry met the enormous black bird for a second time.  
Before he could so much as think about setting the silver stag he had conjured on the Dementor above Dudley, there was a loud, raw croak behind him. Harry snapped around and managed to dive out of the way only in the last second as, with a rushing roaring sound, the raven shot through the narrow alleyway like a bullet, straight towards him. The bird’s wings were not nearly spread to their full extend, not even half the way, otherwise, it simply wouldn’t have fitted between the fence and the garage walls – so big was it. Harry, stumbling hastily to the side, avoided the feathers cutting his face only by a hair’s width. For a moment he thought the thing was there to attack him but it didn’t alter its course as it zoomed past him. Instead, it aimed for Dudley. In the snippet of time it took Harry to gather his breath for a yell of alarm the giant bird had reached his cousin and not one bit too late. Just as the gap between the Dementor’s eyeless face and Dudley’s had dwindled to no more than an inch, the raven collided with the middle of the grey, soul-sucking, hovering mass, throwing it pivoting into the air.  
The bird vanished with its whooshing, hissing wings into the darkness that lay beyond Dudley, who shivered on the ground. Harry, mouth agape and frozen on the spot, watched the Dementor floating around, spinning. It was limp like a rag. Harry briefly wondered if it was dead, but then the raven came storming back into the illuminated circle of his wand, with its razor-sharp claws outstretched in front of it and the beak opened, screeching threateningly. It looked, if that was possible for a bird, murderous.  
Panic flared up in Harry’s chest and he stumbled a few steps back. But the raven didn’t attack him then either. It went down on the Dementor again. This time, if it hadn't already been dead, it would be killed, Harry was certain. One of the talons of the bird burrowed deep into the Dementor’s chest, the other one closed around the head. With a deafening crack, the raven slammed the motionless body into the pavement. It spread its wings wider than before so that the tips of them brushed against the wall and the fence and produced a clattering sound like hundreds of knives that were knocking against each other. Harry's muddled brain barely managed to be confused about that.  
He watched horror-struck as the bird clamped its claws together, screeching menacingly. A second later the skull of the Dementor crumbled. There was no scream, no sound, nothing besides a sickening crunch, the bone giving way and caving in. The Dementor was definitely dead now. Harry shuddered. Suddenly light glimmered through the raven’s talons, flaring brighter and brighter. After the darkness it bit Harry's eyes and stung horribly, forcing him to close them. Soon everything was engulfed in a blinding white.  
The light dimmed slowly and once Harry could open his eyes again the bird was, just as before, gone. His Patronus had dissipated along with it. The only thing left from the fight was a pitiful lump of torn grey robes and bone dust. And one single, shiny black feather atop of it. Moon, stars and street lamps had burst back into life. A warm breeze swept the alleyway. Curiously neither feather nor Dementor remains moved an inch, as though they were immovable statues carved from stone.  
Trees rustled in neighbouring gardens and the mundane rumble of cars in Magnolia Crescent filled the air again. Crickets chirped in the grass. Harry stood unmoving, all his senses vibrating, taking in the abrupt return to normality. After a moment, he became aware that his T-shirt was sticking to him; he was drenched in sweat.  
He could not believe what had just happened. Dementors and a giant raven that had killed one of them like it was the easiest thing to do, here, in Little Whinging.  
Dudley lay curled on the ground, whimpering and shaking. Harry bent down to see whether he was in a fit state to stand up, but then he heard loud, running footsteps behind him. Instinctively raising his wand again, he spun on his heel to face the newcomer.  
Mrs Figg, their batty old neighbour, came panting into sight. Her grizzled grey hair was escaping from its hairnet, a clanking string shopping bag was swinging from her wrist and her feet were halfway out of her tartan carpet slippers. Harry made to stow his wand hurriedly out of sight, but –  
“Don’t put it away, idiot boy!” she shrieked. “What if there are more of them around? Oh, I’m going to kill Mundungus Fletcher!”


	2. A Pack Of Owls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's chapter two, a bit longer than the last :)  
> Hope you enjoy :P

“Professor.”  
“Good evening.”  
“Why am I here?”  
“Fate.”  
“...I beg your pardon?”  
“Fate.”  
“I – I always thought of you as a wise man, Professor, but that –“  
“I meant it quite literally.”  
“You must be jesting.”  
“No, I’m afraid I am not, not at all.”

HARRY

"What?" said Harry blankly.  
"He left!" cried Mrs Figg, wringing her hands. "Left to see someone about a batch of cauldrons that fell off the back of a broom! I told him I'd flay him alive if he went, and now look! Dementors! It's just lucky I put Mr. Tibbles on the case! But we haven't got time to stand around! Hurry, now, we've got to get you back! Oh, the trouble this is going to cause! I will kill him!"  
"But -" The revelation that his batty, old, cat-obsessed neighbour knew what Dementors were was almost as big a shock to Harry as meeting two of them down the alleyway and seeing one killed by a giant bird. "You're - You're a witch?"  
"I'm a Squib, as Mundungus knows full well, so how on earth was I supposed to help you fight off Dementors? I've never so much as Transfigured a teabag! He left you completely without cover when I'd warned him -"  
"So this Mundungus has been following me? Hang on - is there an Animagus tailing me as well?"  
Harry dearly hoped she'd say yes. The raven was a complete mystery to him. One that had first scared him half to death and then saved him. The bird confused and frightened Harry to say the least. But somehow he couldn't bring himself to believe it wanted to murder him any longer, not after the Dementor. Why was it here? What did it want from him? That it wanted something from him was fairly obvious. Just what? If it was indeed an Animagus, those questions would be answered in a blink. It would've been here to help, to keep an eye on him and the scaring thing had been no more than an accident. Harry, however, couldn't shake the feeling that the raven being here for those reasons wasn't completely the just right explanation either - even though, perhaps, it was closer to the truth than the bird planning to kill him.  
"No, there is no Animagus around here, boy. What makes you think that?" Mrs Figg said in mild confusion.  
Harry felt his stomach plummet as if a stone had been dropped in it.  
"Uh, nothing," he said hastily, with the instinct that Mrs Figg really wasn't the right person to tell about the bird. "I just hoped - was curious … I guess." he finished lamely.  
The older woman looked at him for a moment, before she shook her head.  
"Right now there's no one but me watching over you - and Mr. Tibbles, of course. Luckily I'd stationed him under a car just in case, and Mr. Tibbles came and warned me, but by the time I got to your house you'd gone - and now - oh, what’s Dumbledore going to say?  
You!" she shrieked at Dudley, still supine on the floor. "Get your fat bottom off the ground, quick!"  
Her eyes strayed, wandered closer and closer to the Dementor remains with the black feather on top of them. Harry felt his mouth go dry. How was he going to explain a leg-long feather?  
"You know Dumbledore?" blurted Harry, staring at her. He had wanted to distract her and take the feather before she could see it but then her eyes widened almost comically and she gasped. Harry winced.  
"Oh, my -" she took a tentative step towards the grey lump of torn robes and pieces of bone, as though she didn't want to but couldn't quite help herself. "Are that - I've never seen them dying before … didn't even know they - is that a dead Dementor?"  
Harry swallowed awkwardly. "Er … yes?"  
He waited for the moment when she'd ask him about the silky, shining feather but that moment never came. On the contrary, Mrs Figg appeared to take no notice of it at all. Although she walked ever nearer until she stared right down onto it, she didn't make the impression of seeing it. As if she gazed right through it, the look on her face remained one of disgusted interest fixed on slimy bones and ratty cloth strips.  
"Goodness, in all my life, I think I've never seen anything quite as … sickening."  
Harry breathed a sigh of relief but felt a nagging sense of apprehensiveness at the back of his mind at the same time. She couldn't see the feather.  
Mrs Figg looked up at him and asked: "Did your Patronus kill it?"  
"Yeah," Harry lied.  
"My, it must've been powerful. I've never heard of one of them doing that before."  
Harry hadn't either. And something told him it shouldn't have been possible; that a dead Dementor simply didn't happen, not with a Patronus and especially not with a huge bird and no Patronus. Just how did that thing do it? As far as Harry had seen, the raven had crushed the Dementor's skull, nothing more. But it couldn't be that plain …  
A whimper from Dudley brought Harry abruptly from his musings and a fresh wave of panic over Mrs Figg's face.  
She spun around and stooped down, seized one of Dudley's massive arms in her wizened hands and tugged.  
"Get up, you useless lump, get up!"  
But Dudley either could not or would not move. He remained on the ground, trembling and ashen-faced, his mouth shut very tight.  
"I'll do it." Harry took hold of his cousin's arm and heaved. With an enormous effort he managed to hoist him to his feet. Dudley seemed to be on the point of fainting. His small eyes were rolling in their sockets and sweat was beading on his face; the moment Harry let go of him he swayed dangerously.  
"Hurry up!" said Mrs Figg hysterically. "Before the other one comes back!"  
"Wait, Mrs Figg!" Harry called as the woman turned around. "Shouldn't we take the dead Dementor with us? I mean – you can see it, so Muggles can, too, right?"  
Mrs Figg looked back at him with wide eyes and a pale face. She looked utterly horrified at the idea of staying in that alleyway any longer than absolutely necessary, even if it was just one second. Holding her breath, she dared a glance at the hideous remains and her skin turned a greenish hue.  
"Yes," she muttered finally through thin lips, grabbing for something in her shopping bag. "You're right, boy, of course, we should."  
Mrs Figg thrust a yellow plastic bag at Harry and went to take over Dudley.  
"You might need the evidence, anyway. The ministry these days," she shook her head, still looking like she might have to puke. "Unbelievable."  
Harry knelt down beside bones, robes and feather and without much preamble began to scoop the whole mess inside the bag. Better get it over with, he thought. The feather, which poked out of the bag by more than a foot, he had placed carefully on top. He tried to give the bag to Mrs Figg so he could carry Dudley again. She didn't look at it in silent refusal. Instead, she pulled one of Dudley's arms around her own shoulders and began dragging him towards the road, sagging slightly under the doubtlessly far too much weight for her frail, little body. Harry walked slowly beside them. Mrs Figg peered anxiously around the edge.  
"Keep your wand out," she told Harry, huffing, as they entered Wisteria Walk. "Never mind the Statute of Secrecy now, there's going to be hell to pay anyway, we might as well be hanged for a dragon as an egg. Talk about the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery … this was exactly what Dumbledore was afraid of – What's that at the end of the street? Oh, it's just Mr Prentice … don't put your wand away, boy, don't I keep telling you I'm no use?"  
Harry gripped his wand so tightly his knuckles turned white and his fingers lost their feeling. He nodded, throwing a brief look at the bag in his other hand. The feather jutting out of it shimmered like polished metal.  
Mrs Figg gave Dudley an impatient dig in the ribs, but he seemed to have lost all desire for independent movement. He was slumped on the woman's shoulder, his large feet dragging along the ground.  
"Why didn't you tell me you're a Squib, Mrs Figg?" asked Harry. "All those times I came round your house – why didn't you say anything?"  
"Dumbledore's orders," said Mrs Figg, panting with the effort to keep walking. "I was ... to keep an eye on you but not say anything, you were too young ... I'm sorry I gave you such a miserable time, Harry, but the Dursley's ... they would never have let you come if they'd thought you enjoyed it ... It wasn't easy, you know ... but oh my word," she said tragically as her effort-strained face darkened, "when Dumbledore hears about this – how could Mundungus have left ... he was supposed to be on duty until midnight – where is he? How am I going to tell Dumbledore what's happened? I can't Apparate."  
"I've got an owl, you can borrow her." Harry marveled at the strength of Mrs Figg, who still dragged Dudley along. He was sure his spine would've snapped by now.  
"Harry, you don't understand! Dumbledore will need to act as quickly as possible, the Ministry have their own way of detecting magic, they'll know already, you mark my words." The old woman groaned something that sounded suspiciously like 'my, is this boy heavy' and Harry wondered wether they'd reach number four Privet Drive after all.  
"But I was getting rid of Dementors, I had to use magic -" or not, Harry thought, remembering the raven swooping in and coming to the rescue, "they're going to be more worried about what Dementors were doing floating around Wisteria Walk, surely?"  
"Oh, my dear ... I wish it were so ... but I'm afraid - MUNDUNGUS FLETCHER, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"  
There was a loud crack and a strong smell of drink mingled with stale tobacco filled the air as a squat, unshaven man in a tattered overcoat materialised right in front of them. He had short, bandy legs, long straggly ginger hair and bloodshot, baggy eyes that gave him the doleful look of a basset hound. He was also clutching a silvery bundle that Harry recognized at once as an Invisibility Cloak.  
"S'up, Figgy?" he said, staring from the wheezing Mrs Figg who had Dudley draped all over her to Harry. "What 'appened to staying undercover?"  
"I'll give you undercover!" cried Mrs Figg with astonishing volume for her breathless state. "Dementors," and Harry silently added: 'and an oversized bird'; he didn't dare say anything, "you useless, skiving sneak thief!"  
"Dementors?" repeated Mundungus, aghast. "Dementors, 'ere?"  
"Yes, here, you worthless pile of bat droppings, here!" shrieked Mrs Figg. "Dementors attacking the boy on your watch!"  
"Blimey," said Mundungus, looking from the raging woman, who was quite frightening like that, to Harry and back again. "Blimey, I -"  
"And you off buying stolen cauldrons! Didn't I tell you not to go? Didn’t I?"  
"I - well, I -" Mundungus looked deeply uncomfortable. "It - it was a very good business opportunity, see -"  
Mrs Figg in her ager let go of Dudley without thinking twice about it - Harry had to jump in to keep him upright or he would've slumped to the ground like a fat sack of potatoes - and raised the arm from which her string bag dangled to whack Mundungus around the face and neck with it; judging by the clanking noise it made it was full of cat food. Harry's knees wobbled alarmingly as ‘wham’ the shopping bag slammed into Mundungus' shoulder.  
"Ouch - gerroff - gerroff, you mad old bat! Someone's gotta tell Dumbledore!"  
"Yes - they - have!" yelled Mrs Figg, swinging the bag of cat food at every bit of Mundungus she could reach. "And - it - had - better - be - you - and - you - can - tell - him - why - you - weren't - there - to - help!  
"Keep your 'airnet on!" said the by now badly bruised wizard, his arms over his head, cowering. "I'm going, I'm going!"  
And with another loud crack he vanished.  
"I hope Dumbledore murders him!" said Mrs Figg furiously. "Now come on, Harry, what are you waiting for?"  
Harry decided not to waste his remaining breath on pointing out that he could barely walk under Dudley's bulk. He gave his semi-conscious cousin a heave and staggered onwards. That old, feeble Mrs Figg had managed to half carry Dudley for so long was incredible.  
"I'll take you to the door," she said, as they turned into Privet Drive. "Just in case more of them are around … oh my word, what a catastrophe ... and you had to fight them off yourself – killed one – my, oh, my … and Dumbledore said we were to keep you from doing magic at all costs … well, it's no good crying over spilled potion, I suppose … but the cat's among the pixies now."  
"So," Harry panted, hope sparking up despite himself that maybe Dumbledore had just told nobody about an Animagus shadowing him. At least that would be something his headmaster would do, Harry thought. But what Animagus had feathers invisible to certain people? What Animagus could kill a Dementor? "Dumbledore's been ... having me followed?"  
"Of course he has," said Mrs Figg impatiently. "Did you expect him to let you wander around on your own after what happened in June? Good Lord, boy, they told me you were intelligent … right … get inside and stay there," she said as they reached number four. "I expect someone will be in touch with you soon enough."  
"What are you going to do?" asked Harry quickly.  
"I'm going straight home," said Mrs Figg, staring around the dark street and shuddering. "I'll need to wait for more instructions. Just stay in the house. Goodnight."  
"Hang on, don't go yet! I want to know -"  
But Mrs Figg had already set off at a trot, carpet slippers flopping, string bag clanking.  
"Wait!" Harry shouted after her. He had a million questions to ask anyone who was in contact with Dumbledore; and what was he to do with the Dementor remains? Should he just keep them? How was he going to explain them to the Dursleys? But within seconds Mrs Figg was swallowed by the darkness and left Harry alone, just as clueless as before. When was someone finally going to tell him what was going on? Scowling, Harry readjusted Dudley on his shoulder and made his slow, painful way up number four's garden path.  
The hall light was on. Harry stuck his wand back inside the waistband of his jeans, rang the bell and watched Aunt Petunia's outline grow larger and larger, oddly distorted by the rippling glass in the front door.  
"Diddy! About time too, I was getting quite - quite – Diddy what’s the matter?"  
Harry looked sideways at Dudley and ducked out from under his arm just in time. Dudley swayed on the spot for a moment, his face a pale green … then he opened his mouth and vomited all over the doormat.  
"DIDDY! Diddy, what's the matter with you? Vernon? VERNON!"  
Harry's uncle came galumphing out of the living room, walrus moustache blowing hither and thither as it always did when he was agitated. He hurried forwards to help Aunt Petunia negotiate a weak-kneed Dudley over the threshold while avoiding stepping in the pool of sick.  
"He's ill, Vernon!"  
"What is it, son? What's happened? Did Mrs Polkiss give you something foreign for tea?"  
"Why are you all covered in dirt, darling? Have you been lying on the ground?"  
"Hang on - you haven't been mugged, have you, son?"  
Aunt Petunia screamed.  
"Phone the police, Vernon! Phone the police! Diddy, darling, speak to Mummy! What did they do to you?"  
In all the kerfuffle nobody seemed to have noticed Harry, which suited him perfectly. He managed to slip inside just before Uncle Vernon slammed the door and, while the Dursleys made their noisy progress down the hall towards the kitchen, Harry moved carefully and quietly towards the stairs to get into his room as fast as possible and hide the plastic bag somewhere. Luckily neither Aunt Petunia nor Uncle Vernon had caught sight of it so far. He dreaded the moment he had to explain the whole mess to them and hoped with all his might he could avoid that scenario altogether. They didn't react well to anything related to magic, not at all.  
"Who did it, son? Give us names. We'll get them, don't worry."  
"Shh, he's trying to say something, Vernon! What is it, Diddy? Tell Mummy!"  
Harry's foot was on the bottom-most stair when Dudley found his voice.  
"Him."  
Harry froze, foot on the stair, face screwed up, braced for the explosion.  
"BOY, COME HERE!"  
With a feeling of mingled trepidation and anger, Harry removed his foot slowly from the stair and followed the Dursleys, all the while trying to hide the bag behind himself.  
The scrupulously clean kitchen had an oddly unreal glitter after the darkness outside. Aunt Petunia was ushering Dudley into a chair; he was still very green and clammy-looking. Uncle Vernon was standing in front of the draining board, glaring at Harry through tiny, narrowed eyes.  
"What have you done to my son?" he said in a menacing growl.  
"Nothing," said Harry, knowing perfectly well that Uncle Vernon wouldn't believe him. The Dementor's bones dug painfully into his back. The feather, which had been hidden behind his head until now, shifted and fell to the side. To Harry's surprise and horror he saw Uncle Vernon's eyes swivel to the side. His gaze fixed right onto it.  
"What's that?" he snarled; Harry gulped nervously. "Did you play a dumb joke on my son? With - with your freakish abnormality?"  
There was a gasp from Harry's aunt, now sponging sick from the front of Dudley's leather jacket.  
"What did he do to you, Diddy?" she said in a quavering voice. "Was it - was it you-know-what, darling? Did he use - his thing?"  
Slowly, tremulously, Dudley nodded.  
"I didn't!" said Harry sharply, as Aunt Petunia let out a wail and Uncle Vernon began stomping towards him, fists raised. "I didn't do anything to him, it wasn't me, it was -"  
But at that precise moment a screech owl swooped in through the kitchen window. Narrowly missing the top of Uncle Vernon's head, it soared across the room, dropped the large parchment envelope it was carrying in its beak at Harry's feet, turned gracefully, the tips of its wings just brushing the top of the fridge, then zoomed outside again and off into the dark garden.  
"OWLS!" bellowed Uncle Vernon, the well-worn vein in his temple pulsing angrily as he slammed the kitchen window shut. "OWLS AGAIN! I WILL NOT HAVE ANY MORE OWLS IN MY HOUSE!"  
Harry was already ripping open the envelope and pulling out the letter inside, his heart pounding somewhere in the region of his adam's apple. The bag with the Dementor remains and the feather was laying quite forgotten on the tiled kitchen floor, leaning against his calves.

Dear Mr Potter,  
We have received intelligence that you performed the Patronus Charm at twenty-three minutes past nine this evening in a Muggle-inhabited area and in the presence of a Muggle.  
The severity of this breach of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery has resulted in your expulsion from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ministry representatives will be calling at your place of residence shortly to destroy your wand.  
As you have already received an official warning for a previous offence under Section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy, we regret to inform you that your presence is required at a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic at 9 a.m. on the twelfth of August.  
Hoping you are well,  
Yours sincerely,  
Mafalda Hopkirk  
Improper Use of Magic Office  
Ministry of Magic

Harry read the letter through twice. He was only vaguely aware of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia talking. Inside his head, all was icy and numb. He didn't even notice when his uncle snatched the bag from behind him and inspected its insides with barely contained disgust and fury, screaming at him all the while. Only one fact had penetrated Harry's consciousness like a paralysing dart. He was expelled from Hogwarts. It was all over. He was never going back.  
He looked up at the Dursleys. His uncle was purple-faced, shouting, shaking the bag at Harry; Aunt Petunia had her arm around Dudley, who was retching again.  
Harry's temporarily stupefied brain seemed to reawaken. ‘Ministry representatives will be calling at your place of residence shortly to destroy your wand’. There was only one thing for it. He would have to run - now. Where he was going to go, Harry didn't know, but he was certain of one thing: at Hogwarts or outside it, he needed his wand. In an almost dreamlike state, he pulled his wand out and was about to turn and leave the kitchen when his eyes landed on the black feather as if drawn to it like metal to a magnet and he stopped, frozen in place. It gleamed, silky-smooth in the kitchen light.  
"Where d'you think you're going?" yelled Uncle Vernon, effectively breaking the spell-like influence the feather had had over Harry. When he didn't reply, Uncle Vernon pounded across the kitchen to block the doorway into the hall. "I haven't finished with you, boy!"  
"Get out of the way," said Harry quietly.  
"You're going to stay here and explain how my son -"  
"If you don't get out of the way I'm going to jinx you," said Harry, wand raised and trying very hard not to let his gaze fall on the feather again.  
"You can't pull that on me!" snarled Uncle Vernon. "I know you're not allowed to use it outside that madhouse you call a school!"  
"The madhouse has chucked me out," said Harry. "So I can do whatever I like. You've got three seconds. One - two -"  
A resounding THUMP filled the kitchen. Aunt Petunia screamed. Uncle Vernon yelled and ducked, but for the third time that night Harry was searching for the source of a disturbance he had not made. He spotted it at once: a dazed and ruffled-looking barn owl was sitting outside on the kitchen sill, having just collided with the closed window.  
Ignoring Uncle Vernon's anguished yell of 'OWLS!' Harry crossed the room at a run and wrenched the window open. The owl stuck out its leg, to which a small roll of parchment was tied, shook its feathers and took off the moment Harry had taken the letter. Hands shaking he unfurled the second message. It was written very hastily and blotchily in black ink.

Harry -  
Dumbledore's just arrived at the Ministry and he's trying to sort it all out. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR AUNT AND UNCLE'S HOUSE. DO NOT DO ANY MORE MAGIC. DO NOT SURRENDER YOUR WAND.  
Arthur Weasley

Dumbledore was trying to sort it all out … what did that mean? How much power did Dumbledore have to override the Ministry of Magic? Was there a chance that he might be allowed back at Hogwarts, then? A small shoot of hope burgeoned in Harry's chest, almost immediately strangled by panic - how was he supposed to refuse to surrender his wand without doing magic? He'd have to duel with the Ministry representatives, and if he did that, he'd be lucky to escape Azkaban, let alone expulsion.  
His mind was racing … he could run for it and risk being captured by the Ministry, or stay put and wait for them to find him here. He was much more tempted by the former course, but he knew Mr Weasley had his best interest at heart … and after all, Dumbledore had sorted out much worse than this before.  
He turned around and as though inevitable looked again at the bag and the feather, still in Uncle Vernon's hand. He had evidence, just as Mrs Figg had told him he'd need, Harry realised. Maybe he could reason with the representatives that he had been forced to use magic, he had needed to defend himself and his cousin against soul-sucking monsters. The feather, on the other hand, was a problem. Wether the Ministry workers could see it, and that was crucial for Harry explaining his use of magic and the dead Dementor, was something only time could tell. So far it had been completely random who could and who couldn't. Like the feather itself decided …  
"Right," Harry said, "I've changed my mind, I'm staying."  
He flung himself down at the kitchen table and faced Dudley and Aunt Petunia. The Dursleys seemed taken aback at his abrupt change of mind. Aunt Petunia glanced despairingly at Uncle Vernon. The vein in his purple temple was throbbing worse than ever.  
"Who are all these ruddy owls from?" he growled, slamming the plastic bag onto the table. Harry eyed it warily.  
"The first one was from the Ministry of Magic, expelling me," said Harry calmly. He was straining his ears to catch any noises outside, in case the Ministry representatives were approaching, and it was easier and quieter to answer Uncle Vernon's questions than to have him start raging and bellowing. "The second one was from my friend Ron's dad, who works at the Ministry."  
"Ministry of Magic?" bellowed Uncle Vernon. "People like you in government? Oh, this explains everything, everything, no wonder the country's going to the dogs."  
When Harry did not respond, Uncle Vernon glared at him, then spat out: "And why have you been expelled?"  
"Because I did magic."  
"AHA!" roared Uncle Vernon, slamming his fist down on top of the bag, in which, crunching, several more bone pieces were ground to dust. "So you admit it! What did you do with this nasty nonsense? What did you do to Dudley?"  
"Nothing," said Harry, slightly less calmly. "That wasn't me -"  
"Was," muttered Dudley unexpectedly and Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia instantly made flapping gestures at Harry to quieten him while they both bent low over Dudley.  
"Go on, son," said Uncle Vernon, "what did he do?"  
"Tell us, darling," whispered Aunt Petunia.  
"Pointed his wand at me," Dudley mumbled.  
"Yeah, I did, but I didn't use -" Harry began angrily, but -  
"SHUT UP!" roared his uncle and aunt in unison.  
"Go on, son," repeated Uncle Vernon, moustache blowing about furiously.  
"All went dark," Dudley said hoarsely, shuddering. "Everything dark. And then I h-heard … things. Inside m-my head."  
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia exchanged looks of utter horror. If their least favourite thing in the world was magic - closely followed by neighbours who cheated more than they did on the hosepipe ban - people who heard voices were definitely in the bottom ten. They obviously thought Dudley was losing his mind.  
"What sort of thing did you hear, Popkin?" breathed Aunt Petunia, white-faced and with tears in her eyes.  
But Dudley seemed incapable of saying. He shuddered again and shook his large blond head, and despite the sense of numb dread that had settled on Harry since the arrival of the first owl, he felt a certain curiosity. Dementors caused a person to relive the worst moments of their life. What would spoiled, pampered, bullying Dudley have been forced to hear?  
"How come you fell over, son?" said Uncle Vernon, in an unnaturally quiet voice, the kind of voice he might adopt at the bedside of a very ill person.  
"T-tripped," said Dudley shakily. "And then -"  
He gestured at his massive chest. Harry understood. Dudley was remembering the clammy, cold that filled the lungs as hope and happiness were sucked out of you.  
"Horrible," croaked Dudley, "cold. Really cold."  
"OK," said Uncle Vernon, in a voice of forced calm, while Aunt Petunia laid an anxious hand on Dudley's forehead to feel his temperature. "What happened then, Dudders?"  
"Felt … felt … felt … as if … as if …"  
"As if you'd never be happy again," supplied Harry tonelessly.  
"Yes," Dudley whispered, still trembling.  
"So!" said Uncle Vernon, voice restored to full and considerable volume as he straightened up. "You put some crackpot spell on my son so he'd hear voices and believe he was - was doomed to misery, or something, didn't you?"  
"How many times do I have to tell you?" said Harry, temper and voice both rising. "It wasn’t me! It was a couple of Dementors! One of them is in there," he pointed at the bag beneath Uncle Vernon's meaty fist, "dead."  
Promptly, Uncle Vernon pulled his hand from the table as if burned. Eyes bulging he stared at the lumpy plastic bag. The feather, whole and unharmed, stuck out of it, shining like before.  
"A couple of - what's this codswallop?"  
"De - men - tors," said Harry slowly and clearly. "Two. And the remains of one of them are inside that bag."  
"What the ruddy hell are Dementors?"  
"They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban," said Aunt Petunia.  
Two seconds of ringing silence followed these words before Aunt Petunia clapped her hand over her mouth as though she had let slip a disgusting swear word. Uncle Vernon was goggling at her. Harry's brain reeled. Mrs Figg was one thing - but Aunt Petunia?  
"How d'you know that?" he asked her, astonished.  
Aunt Petunia looked quite appalled with herself. She glanced at Uncle Vernon in fearful apology, then lowered her hand slightly to reveal her horsy teeth.  
"I heard - that awful boy - telling her about them - years ago," she said jerkily.  
"If you mean my mum and dad, why don't you use their names?" said Harry loudly, but Aunt Petunia ignored him. She seemed horribly flustered.  
Harry was stunned. Except for one outburst years ago, in the course of which Aunt Petunia had screamed that Harry's mother had been a freak, he had never heard her mention her sister. He was astounded that she had remembered this scrap of information about the magical world for so long, when she usually put all her energies into pretending it didn't exist.  
Uncle Vernon opened his mouth, closed it again, opened it once more, shut it, then, apparently struggling to remember how to talk, opened it for a third time and croaked: "So - so - they - er - they - er - they actually exist, do they - er - Dementy-whatsits?  
Aunt Petunia nodded.  
Uncle Vernon looked from Aunt Petunia to Dudley to Harry as if hoping somebody was going to shout 'April Fool!' When nobody did, he opened his mouth yet again but was spared the struggle to find more words by the arrival of the third owl of the evening. It zoomed through the still-open window like a feathery cannonball and landed with a clatter on the kitchen table, causing all three of the Dursleys to jump in fright. Harry tore a second official-looking envelope from the owl's beak and ripped it open as the owl swooped back out into the night.  
"Enough - effing - owls," muttered Uncle Vernon distractedly, stomping over to the window and slamming it shut again. 

Dear Mister Potter,  
Further to our letter of approximately twenty-four minutes ago, the Ministry of Magic has revised its decision to destroy your wand forthwith. You may retain your wand until your disciplinary hearing on the twelfth of August, at which time an official decision will be taken.  
Following discussions with the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Ministry has agreed that the question of expulsion will also be decided at that time. You should therefore consider yourself suspended from school pending further enquiries.  
With best wishes,  
Yours sincerely,  
Mafalda Hopkirk  
Improper Use of Magic Office  
Ministry of Magic

Harry read this letter through three times in quick succession. The miserable knot in his chest loosened slightly with the relief of knowing he was not yet definitely expelled, though his fears were by no means banished. Everything seemed to hang on his hearing on the twelfth of August.  
"Well?" said Uncle Vernon, recalling Harry to his surroundings. "What now? Have they sentenced you to anything? Do your lot have the death penalty? Surely, killing such a prison guard … thing … has to be thoroughly punished?" he added as a hopeful afterthought, glaring daggers at the bag on the table.  
"I've got to go to a hearing," said Harry, staring at the table now, too, but more at the shimmering feather. He had hoped the Dementor remains would help his case, but what if not? What if killing one - Harry still doubted that was possible for an ordinary wizard or witch - was a crime?  
"And they'll sentence you there?"  
"I suppose so."  
"I won't give up hope, then," said Uncle Vernon nastily.  
"Well if that's all," said Harry, getting to his feet. He was desperate to be alone, to think, perhaps to send a letter to Ron, Hermione or Sirius.  
"NO, IT RUDDY WELL IS NOT ALL!" bellowed Uncle Vernon. "SIT BACK DOWN!"  
"What now?" said Harry impatiently.  
"DUDLEY!" roared Uncle Vernon. "I want to know exactly what happened to my son!"  
"FINE!" yelled Harry, and in his temper, red and gold sparks shot out of the end of his wand, still clutched in his hand. All three Dursleys flinched, looking terrified.  
"Dudley and I were in the alleyway between Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk," said Harry, speaking fast, fighting to control his temper. "Dudley thought he'd be smart with me, I pulled out my wand but didn't use it. Then two Dementors turned up -"  
"But what ARE Dementoids?" asked Uncle Vernon furiously. "What do they DO?"  
"I told you - they suck all the happiness out of you," said Harry, "and if they get the chance, they kiss you -"  
"Kiss you?" said Uncle Vernon, his eyes popping slightly. He pointed a thick, trembling finger at the grey lump, hidden beneath screaming yellow plastic, on the table. "That thing – it kissed my son?"  
"It's what they call it when they suck the soul out of your mouth." Harry couldn't even begin to tell them that the Dementor hadn't succeeded in doing so with Dudley.  
Aunt Petunia uttered a soft scream.  
"His soul? They didn't take - he's still got his -"  
She seized Dudley by the shoulders and shook him, as though testing to see wether she could hear his soul rattling around inside him.  
"Of course they didn't get his soul, you'd know if they had," said Harry exasperated.  
"Fought 'em off, did you, son?" said Uncle Vernon loudly, with the appearance of a man struggling to bring the conversation back on to a plane he understood. "Gave 'em the old one-two, did you?"  
"You can't give a Dementor the old one-two," said Harry through clenched teeth; but, as he spotted the glimmering feather in his periphery, he remembered the bird crushing the Dementor's skull. Maybe you can, he involuntarily thought.  
"Why is he alright, then?" blustered Uncle Vernon. "Why isn't he all empty, then?"  
Throwing caution to the wind Harry decided to just tell the whole story. Uncle Vernon could at least see the feather, unlike Mrs Figg and that had to mean something.  
"Because I used the Patronus -"  
WHOOSH. With a clattering, a whirring of wings and a soft fall of dust, a fourth owl came shooting out of the kitchen fireplace.  
"FOR GOD'S SAKE!" roared Uncle Vernon, pulling great clumps of hair out of his moustache, something he hadn't been driven to do in a long time. "I WILL NOT HAVE OWLS HERE, I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS, I TELL YOU!"  
But Harry was already pulling a roll of parchment from the owl's leg. He was so convinced that this letter had to be from Dumbledore, explaining everything - the Dementors, the huge maybe-Animagus-bird, Mrs Figg, what the Ministry was up to, how he, Dumbledore, intended to sort everything out - that for the first time in his life he was disappointed to see Sirius's handwriting. Ignoring Uncle Vernon's ongoing rant about owls, and narrowing his eyes against a second cloud of dust as the most recent owl took off back up the chimney, Harry read Sirius's message. 

Arthur has just told us what's happened.  
Don't leave the house again, whatever you do.

Harry found this such an inadequate response to everything that had happened tonight, that he turned the piece of parchment over, looking for the rest of the letter, but there was nothing else.  
And now his temper was rising again. Wasn't anybody going to say 'well done' for fighting off two Dementors? Admittedly he had done so with the help of a massive, frightening bird, but they didn't know that, right? Harry didn't want to take credit for the bird's work, not at all - he just had to do so with Mrs Figg, because the feather that had been left behind was invisible to certain people – her included – apparently, and he had had the feeling, telling her about it was wrong. But fighting a twelve foot tall, soul-sucking Dementor wasn't easy, no matter whose help you had. Harry had still had to fight and he had fought well. Both Mr Weasley and Sirius, however, were acting as if he'd misbehaved and were saving their tellings-off until they could ascertain how much damage had been done.  
"… a peck, I mean, pack of owls shooting in and out of my house. I won't have it, boy, I won't -"  
"I can't stop the owls coming!" Harry snapped, crumbling Sirius's letter in his fist.  
"I want the truth about what happened tonight!" barked Uncle Vernon. "If it was Demenders who hurt Dudley, how come you've been expelled? You did you-know-what, you've admitted it!"  
Harry took a deep, steadying breath. His head was beginning to ache again. He wanted more than anything to get out of the kitchen and away from the Dursleys.  
"I did the Patronus Charm to get rid of the Dementors; it's the only thing that works against them." he said, forcing himself to remain calm. He made a waving motion at the yellow bag. "Or so I thought … Then this giant bird swooped in - hence the feather - and killed the one I hadn't chased away yet."  
"What is this giant bird rubbish?" said Uncle Vernon in an outraged tone.  
"You can see the bloody feather, can't you? Look at it!" Harry spat out, his uncle's eyes darting to the feather for a split second, only to flit right back to Harry, as though he were afraid to look at the shiny, black object. "Don't pretend you haven't noticed how abnormally large it is! The bird was huge! And it swooped in, crushed the Dementor's skull and was gone again. I have no idea why it did that or why it was there in the first place."  
Uncle Vernon seemed to fight an internal battle with himself, but nobody could ignore the sheer size of the feather. No ordinary raven that lived in this region would have feathers this big. In fact, Harry doubted any raven had.  
In the end, Uncle Vernon said nothing more on that matter, set on pretending it had never happened and the evidence didn't exist.  
"But what were Dementoids doing in Little Whinging?" he asked.  
"Couldn't tell you," answered Harry wearily. "No idea."  
His head was pounding in the glare of the strip-lightening now. His anger was ebbing away. He felt drained, exhausted. The Dursleys were all staring at him.  
"It's you," said Uncle Vernon forcefully. "It's got something to do with you, boy, I know it. Why else would they turn up here? Why else would they be down that alleyway? You've got to be the only you-know-what for miles."  
"I don't know why either of them was here."  
But at Uncle Vernon's words, Harry's tired brain had ground back into action. Why had the Dementors come to Little Whinging? How could it be coincidence that they had arrived in the alleyway where Harry was? Had they been sent? Had the Ministry of Magic lost control of the Dementors? Had they deserted Azkaban and joined Voldemort, as Dumbledore had predicted they would? The raven might have been here to protect him, the Dementors surely weren't. But who did the bird belong to, then? On whose orders did it act? Dumbledore's? Or was it on its own, following nobody but itself? What did it want? For now, it seemed at least somewhat interested in Harry's well being. If not, it would've just left him to the Dementors. Or crushed his skull. Harry shivered, remembering the dull crunch.  
"These Demembers guard some weirdo prison?" asked Uncle Vernon, lumbering along in the wake of Harry's train of thought.  
"Yes," said Harry.  
If only his head would stop hurting, if only leave the kitchen and get into his dark bedroom and think …  
"Oho! They were coming to arrest you!" said Uncle Vernon with the triumphant air of a man reaching an unassailable conclusion. "That's it, isn't it, boy? You're on the run from the law!"  
"Of course I'm not," said Harry, shaking his head as though to scare off a fly, his mind racing now.  
"Then why -?"  
"He must have sent them," said Harry quietly, more to himself than Uncle Vernon.  
"What's that? Who must have sent them?"  
"Lord Voldemort," said Harry.  
He registered dimly how strange it was that the Dursleys, who flinched, winced and squawked if they heard words like 'wizards', 'magic' or 'wand', could hear the name of the most evil wizard of all time without the slightest tremor.  
"Lord - hang on," said Uncle Vernon, his face screwed up, a look of dawning comprehension coming into his piggy eyes. "I've heard that name … that was the one who -"  
"Murdered my parents, yes," Harry said.  
"But he's gone," said Uncle Vernon impatiently, without the slightest sign that the murder of Harry's parents might be a painful topic. "That giant bloke said so. He's gone."  
"He's back," said Harry heavily.  
It felt very strange to be sitting here in Aunt Petunia's surgically clean kitchen, beside the top-of-the-range fridge and the wide-screen television, talking calmly of Lord Voldemort to Uncle Vernon. The arrival of the Dementors and the bird in Little Whinging seemed to have breached the great, invisible wall that divided the relentlessly non-magical world of privet Drive and the world beyond. Harry's two lives had somehow become fused and everything had been turned upside-down; the Dursleys were asking for details about the magical world, and Mrs Figg knew Albus Dumbledore; Dementors were soaring around Little Whinging and being offed by oversized black birds, Harry might never return to Hogwarts. Harry's head throbbed more painfully.  
"Back?" whispered Aunt Petunia.  
She was looking at Harry as she had never looked at him before. And all of a sudden, for the very first time in his life, Harry fully appreciated that Aunt Petunia was his mother's sister. He could not have said why it hit him so very powerfully at this moment. All he knew was that he was not the only person in the room who had an inkling of what Lord Voldemort being back might mean. Aunt Petunia had never in her life looked at him like that before. Her large, pale eyes (so unlike her sister's) were not narrowed in dislike or anger, they were wide and fearful. The furious pretence that Aunt Petunia had maintained all Harry's life - that there was no magic and no world other than the world she inhabited with her husband - seemed to have fallen away.  
"Yes," Harry said, talking directly to Aunt Petunia now. "He came back a month ago. I saw him."  
Her hands found Dudley's massive leather-clad shoulders and clutched them.  
"Hang on," said Uncle Vernon, looking from his wife to Harry and back again, apparently dazed and confused by the unprecedented understanding that seemed to have sprung up between them. "Hang on. This Lord Voldything's back, you say."  
"Yes."  
"The one who murdered your parents."  
"Yes."  
"And now he's sending Dismembers after you?"  
"Looks like it."  
"I see," said Uncle Vernon, looking from a white-faced Aunt Petunia to Harry and hitching up his trousers. He seemed to be swelling, his great purple face stretching before Harry's eyes. "Well that settles it," he said, his shirt front straining as he inflated himself, "you can get out of this house, boy!"  
"What?" said Harry, baffled.  
"You heard me – OUT!" Uncle Vernon bellowed, and even Aunt Petunia and Dudley jumped. "OUT! OUT! I should've done this years ago! Owls treating the place like a rest home, puddings exploding, half the lounge destroyed, Dudley's tail, Marge bobbing around on the ceiling and that flying Ford Anglia – OUT! OUT! You've had it! You're history! You're not staying here if some loony's after you, you're not endangering my wife and son, you're not bringing trouble down on us. If you're going the same way as your useless parents, I've had it. OUT!"  
Harry stood rooted on the spot. The letters from the Ministry, Mr Weasley and Sirius were all crushed in his left hand. ‘Don't leave the house again, whatever you do. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR AUNT AND UNCLE'S HOUSE.’  
"You heard me!" said Uncle Vernon, bending forwards now, his massive purple face coming so close to Harry's, he actually felt flecks of spit hit his face. "Get going! You were all keen to leave half an hour ago! I'm right behind you! Get out and never darken our doorstep again! Why we ever kept you in the first place, I don't know. Marge was right, it should have been the orphanage. We were too damn soft for our own good, thought we could squash it out of you, thought we could turn you normal, but you've been rotten from the beginning and I've had enough – OWLS!"  
The fifth owl zoomed down the chimney so fast it actually hit the floor before rising into the air again with a loud screech. Harry raised his hand to seize the letter, which was in a scarlet envelope, but it soared straight over his head, flying directly at Aunt Petunia, who let out a scream and ducked, her arms over her face. The owl dropped the red envelope on her head, turned, and flew straight back up the chimney.  
Harry darted forwards to pick up the letter, but Aunt Petunia beat him to it.  
"You can open it if you like," said Harry, "but I'll hear what it says anyway. That's a Howler."  
"Let go of it, Petunia!" roared Uncle Vernon. "Don't touch it, it could be dangerous!"  
"It's addressed to me," said Aunt Petunia in a shaking voice. "It's addressed to me, Vernon, look! Mrs Petunia Dursley, The Kitchen, Number Four, Privet Drive –“  
She caught her breath, horrified. The red envelope had begun to smoke.  
"Open it!" Harry urged her. "Get it over with! It'll happen anyway."  
"No."  
Aunt Petunia's hand was trembling. She looked wildly around the kitchen as though looking for an escape route, but too late - the envelope burst into flames. Aunt Petunia screamed and dropped it.  
An awful voice filled the kitchen, echoing in the confined space, issuing from the burning letter on the table.  
"Remember my last, Petunia."  
Aunt Petunia looked as though she might faint. She sank into the chair beside Dudley, her face in her hands. The remains of the envelope smouldered into ash beside the yellow plastic bag in the silence.  
"What is this?" Uncle Vernon said hoarsely. "What - I don't - Petunia?"  
Aunt Petunia said nothing. Dudley was staring stupidly at his mother, his mouth hanging open. The silence spiralled horribly. Harry was watching his aunt, utterly bewildered, his head throbbing fit to burst.  
"Petunia, dear?" said Uncle Vernon timidly. "P-Petunia?"  
She raised her head. She was still trembling. She swallowed.  
"The boy - the boy will have to stay, Vernon," she said weakly.  
"W-what?"  
"He stays," she said. She was looking at Harry and got to her feet again.  
"He … but Petunia …"  
"If we throw him out, the neighbours will talk," she said. She was rapidly regaining her brisk, snappish manner, though she was still very pale. "They'll ask awkward questions, they'll want to know where he's gone. We'll have to keep him."  
Uncle Vernon was deflating like an old tyre.  
"But Petunia, dear -"  
Aunt Petunia ignored him. She turned to Harry.  
"You're to stay in your room," she said. "You're not to leave the house. Now go to bed."  
Harry didn't move.  
"Who was the Howler from?"  
"Don't ask questions," Aunt Petunia snapped.  
"Are you in touch with wizards?"  
"I told you to go to bed!"  
"What did it mean? Remember the last what?"  
"Go to bed!"  
"How come -?"  
"YOU HEARD YOUR AUNT, NOW GO TO BED - AND TAKE THIS SICK RUBBISH WITH YOU!"


End file.
